Egypt, husband and wife locked up in Al-Sisi prison without trial. The letter to his son: “We are here to give everyone a better future”

“Be proud of your mother and father, Khaled. We are in prison to make life better for you and for everyone. Be proud and walk with your head held high among the people. Dad and I are separated by walls that block light and freedom simply because we are journalists and we have done our job with dedication and professionalism “. In one of the very rare letters that Solafa Magdy | managed to get her family delivered from the women’s prison in Qanater, the freelance journalist turns to her son Khaled, 7, who has lived with his maternal grandmother since November 2019 because his parents are in prison.

Solafa Magdy e Hossam al-Sayyad were arrested by agents of the National Security Agency while they were having a coffee in a bar of Doqqi, Giza Governorate (same neighborhood where he lived Jules Regeni), in the company of another journalist colleague, Mohamed Salah: of him Ilfattoquotidiano.it he wrote last month in connection with the violence and torture he suffered inside a police station. Solafa and Hossam, husband and wife, a great team whose project of journalistic enterprise and life took its first steps during the emotionally adrenaline-pumping days of the revolution in piazza Tahrir, in January 2011. That day at the end of November 2019 their path was interrupted and, as for many other colleagues and political and human rights activists, the regime ordered their internment. Magdy and al-Sayyad ended up in one of the cases investigated by the State Prosecutor’s Office, the 488 of 2019, the same as Mohamed Salah and the journalist Esraa Abdel Fattah (stopped and locked up in Qanater the month before): “Spreading false news and joining a terrorist group”, the usual refrain of the regime’s justice. The same justice that, code in hand, should allow one of the two spouses to take care of the child and therefore grant the probation to Khaled’s mother. Despite repeated requests from their lawyer, the former 2018 presidential candidate, Khaled Ali, the two remain in their respective cells, Hossam in that of the section Scorpio II of the Tora prison.

On January 31, Solafa Magdy turned 34 and despite everything the Qanater prison management refused to allow the woman to get in touch with the family, with Khaled in particular, showing the more hateful side: no visit, no phone call and even denied even the delivery of a bouquet from the mother and a child’s drawing. The woman’s lawyer also filed a complaint with the Attorney General against the prison policemen, accused of physical assaults, employee e intimidation.

Solafa Magdy and Hossam al-Sayyad began dating during the hot months of the revolution and then deepened their relationship, culminating in the wedding in 2012. Two years later Khaled was born. The two never separated, the shared work made them a real team. Solafa has always taken care of the most exquisitely journalistic part while her husband of that technique, from shooting to editing.

Self-taught, the two have always favored a type of street journalism, collecting information and publishing much appreciated reports and surveys, to the point of attracting the attention of major international newspapers such as Bbc, German wave or the Iraqi television network al-Sharqiya. The passion beyond the difficulties of sustenance, the constant search for contracts to cover business expenses and guarantee a salary to move forward: “From the beginning I chose to be a reporter because I believe it is the only profession able convey the voice of the weak, change people’s destiny and make a difference in our society, “Solafa said in an interview two months before she was arrested following professional recognition by United Nations.

Investigative and independent journalism, in the best pioneering spirit, but with one aspect to counteract: no protection against the likely repercussions of repressive machine. Their jobs annoyed the regime which promptly made them pay for it. That evening in late November, around 10 pm, the three journalists sat at a table in a bar in the area of Downtown Cairo they were surrounded by a patrol of plainclothes security officers who took them away, among the people, loaded into a van and transferred to a police station. Since then, the detentions of Solafa Magdy and Hossam al-Sayyad have been renewed periodically, as has been happening since last March in Patrick Zaki |. The couple of journalists remain in their cells and risk seeing their imprisonment without trial taken beyond the two-year threshold, which should oblige the Egyptian justice to release them.

In the meantime, however, it is health state of the two is getting worrying: Hossam has back problems, his wife suffers the consequences of a gynecological intervention of 2017. Both have periodically started hunger strikes to protest the prison conditions. There is never an end to the worst and who expects, sooner or later, a lightening of the vice from the president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi he is very mistaken about the free press and information in general. On Sunday the Egyptian Supreme Council for Media Regulation (Scaf) announced a ‘urgent investigation against some newspapers, newspapers and websites. The supervisory body does not specify who are involved in the investigation and with what charges, but justifies the initiative because of “excessive dissemination of ethical issues that offend the community and the family, according to complaints and reports from institutions and citizens “. Masked obscurantist measures to reinforce the crackdown on the few dissenting voices in Egypt.

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